Cooler. Way cooler. Maybe even cooler than DANDANDAN. He's right up there with Barry and Rosh and Dhaval.

LTG : )

I got the feeling that might be the case, so I was holding the ball on the right flipper to see if the lit shot would move from the right orbit to the left, but it didn't... clearly I wasn't patient enough... I'll be paying more attention next time! (and waiting longer )

I'll mail you a log of my last game where the TAP lanes were not responding to my flipper presses... and maybe play with the glass off to see if I can force some more informative data!

Are you talking about Rotor or Rockin Express? Rotor the lit shot slowly works across the playfield and back (it is really two lit shots as it moves), in Rockin Express the orbits alternate being lit. Rotor movement is based only on time, Rockin is a combination. In Rockin after you make an orbit shot, there is a delay before switching sides (so good if you are looping on the lit orbit, not so good when it is the unlit). Keep in mind it is the number of spins that count towards getting the win, so your score in the mode can be very different on a win if you got there hitting the lit orbit vs the unlit.

Hey @rosh,
#oktoberfest plays awesome, but if I had to ask for one thing, it would be actually the capability to add custom music for tent modes. As cool as the included music track is, I would love to be able to add songs myself and then either have the pinball machine pick from it randomly in a tent mode or allow to associate specific songs to specific tents. As somebody who has been going actually to Oktoberfest and Plärrer while living in Germany I would love to pack some custom songs in there reminding me of years when I was younger

Possibly it could be implemented in a way that when you plug in a USB stick it pulls files of a specific name e.g. TentXX.wav/.mp3 where XX element of [01-14] in and overwrites the music for that tent until you overwrite it again or clear it in the service menu to reset it. Of course, no DRM, only up to a certain size and so on to make that easier for you guys. This would work similar to the welcome message picture. I don't know how much storage space you have available still to see if that is feasible, and I also don't know how complicated this would be to implement - obviously, if that would drain considerable development resources, then I rather keep you guys working on the play code itself.

Prost!

I'm pretty sure it was Rotor I was playing... the one where Inga tells you to spin the other way... you're gonna tell me that's Rokin' Express now right .. and when you drain the ball, Inga says something like 'I hope you enjoyed that ride!'... which is obviously winding the player up having just completely messed the mode up AND lost his ball

I'll double check, but also send the log anyway to try and understand what the TAP lanes were doing...

Fully behind you on that one, it would truly be awesome if we could put our own music in there for the modes!!! I'm not a fan of metal at the best if times, and don't think these metal tracks fit the theme... I never heard any metal at the Munich Beer-fest at least... I was going to suggest the same thing myself, but didn't want to overload you with my suggestions, and as T3quila said, would prefer you to spend time on the play code... but actually, the more I think about it, music that I actually like would really be a vast improvement to me...

Yep, that's Rockin' Express. As rosh said, in that tent you really want to loop the lit orbit repeatedly as fast as possible... the lit orbit won't switch as long as you keep making it in quick succession, and the points get juicy if you can hit the orbit a few times in a row.

I see... thanks for clarifying... so it was this mode then where the TAP lanes wouldn't change... Will send the log...

Having played Oktoberfest hundreds of times (and still haven't gotten tired of it), I'm in the camp that thinks its number of multi-ball modes and the challenge level of starting them is just right. I might even say "brilliant". It's up there with my favorite pinball games of all time, games like TZ, CFTBL, IJ, AFM, etc. Some newer games feature a lot of easy-to-start multi-ball modes. That's fine, but I'd never buy one, not for home use (I'm not into flail-fests). In Oktoberfest, there are a couple things about multi-ball that I think are brilliant: 1) The ability to "stack" stuff (such as food stand, playfield multiplier, start a well-chosen mode...) and then start multi-ball with a well-executed ramp shot. So satisfying! 2) I love that I have a choice and I'm not forced to start Juggling mode (a multi-ball mode) every time it is presented as the initial default... and yet a newcomer can access it easily. Well done!

Fully agree, especially since I suck at pinball in general and at Multiball specifically. I get typically 10 seconds of riveting chaos until the drain protector runs out.

There is nothing greater then the Multiball starting at this machine, everybody gets super excited. The presentation is just on point.

Before, DI was my favorite machine but this is even better and DI won last year best in several categories I believe. Obviously, I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but the game is just so versatile and has this "one more game" quality!

That is where I am at. I like it so much.

My distributor has a Houdini in his collection he loves, so I grabbed a Houdini next, because we were loving AP with this Okt.

We have played Houdini a little, and look forward to playing it more and see more new stuff we have not got to yet, but damn, it is hard to play any other game at the moment, Oktoberfest is just so addictive trying to go for so many different things.

About 95% of the time I stack Steins in a certain order and go for tents in a certain order, and sometimes I just play totally different just to change things up. (like the times I suck and can never get the ball in the tent, and actually I can make the tent the easiest with the left flipper, partly blind in right eye may have something to do with that).

Last night was my best score so far, 4.8m, not much compared to that 91 someone posted. Game lasted 22.20, and I had 4 extra balls and 2 rollercoaster mb's.

I love games that have ways to get multiple extra balls during a good game, and this game rocks with that.

I don't do well in multiball in any game, so I am glad this is not mb heavy. And when I do get one it is awesome also, because except for Juggling, it was earned.

The tent modes are icing on the cake, they make the game awesome.

Game #3 will be revealed at TPF 2020. Looking forward to that.

Personnally I would add those titles :

They were big hits in Germany back in 1994 - 1995

The first track was good 'till the Rasta kicked in (I was imagining it on corkscrew MB...), and the 2nd track... mmm... ok... more fitting than the metal I suppose due to the yodeling elements, but would get annoying very fast for me... it got annoying before I heard it through just the once! Would much prefer being able to change the music to what I want... I realise AP are considering this and all comments made, but it would be cool to know if there's any chance that the owner being able to enter his own music would be possible at some point with this game?... Is it even possible now somehow? I bought AC/DC with the knowledge that changing the music was possible, I actually didn't bother in the end because the gameplay wasn't my cup of tea, so now it's in the for sale pile, but I have a feeling I'd like to keep this game... the ability to change the music would definitely help it stay in the keeper stash!

I remember the first one, that may have even made it onto a Bravo Hits CD. I think they vanished as quick as they rose...

I probably would put DJ Ötzi, Schürzenjäger, Hermes House Band and Mickie Krause or something like that in. Stuff you hear in the evening in the tents from the party bands.

rosh I do realize this is solely interesting for home users and probably no operator would touch that at all. Was just an idea.

However, a great one none-the-less... I'd even pay API to send them music to put into a personal copy of the code! Obviously being able to do that via a USB stick would be even better, and I'd pay for that too... even more so!!

I am actually in the software industry, and I would bet that feature if quoted - even if trivial to implement within an afternoon by a developer - would be at least several thousands of dollars, and then they would still likely make a loss on it. If non-trivial then the cost will go up quite a bit, to a point where it becomes totally non-feasible.
People don't realize the cost of QA and maintenance that is associated with this sort of stuff. Plus it drains resources from somewhere else. Being not a huge company that has slack built into the process due to management overhead, I bet they have very tight schedules and need to make the absolute most out of the resources available.

This is why I so much appreciate the quality of the game and the willingness to interface with us customers! You guys did something magical here, and I'm keen to see where you'll be going in the future!

Ferret & rosh maybe one day I can come visit you guys (once you are moved of course) - I would love to see the tools and tool chains that you guys are using!

Thank you Dan!
I burned through all my PTO with the move this year, so it will have to wait until next spring at least unfortunately. By then you will likely have already revealed your 3rd game and I might get to see it.

I was invited and saw the current place last year. I had a great time. Dhaval gave me the tour. Amazing set up. And super clean.

I hope some day to see the new place. Though not going back to Expo, not likely I'll be anywhere near Chicago again.

I look forward to the pictures/video when the new place is rolling.

LTG : )

That's interesting... you have an idea, I support it, and then you state financial reasons why my support doesn't hold water... Not sure why it would be several $1000s if it's just an afternoon to implement though... are Ferret/Rosh really paid so much? Anyone know where I can take a course in pinball programming?

Reason is that there are MANY side effects of even the simplest sounding feature. Consider something that seems easy like changing music...

- How does the new music get onto the machine? Presumably via USB stick, OK, but... is there a user interface for it? If so, that needs to be designed and tested. If not, how does it work? List of filenames that we're looking for on that USB stick? That would still need to be designed and tested. Oh, and documented too, else no one will actually know the feature exists and how to use it.

- What if the customer later decides they don't want their custom music after all and want to go back to the original game music... how does that happen? This time there most likely would need to be a user interface... probably don't want the absence of files on a USB stick to mean "revert to original game music", because then when a customer goes to install the next code update but that USB stick doesn't have all their custom music, they'd be unhappy to have all their changes reverted blindly. So more stuff to design, test, and document.

- What if the customer provides files that are not compatible with our sound system? Result here could be anything, up to and including the machine crashing. (I'm sure everyone has had MP3s or MP4s that crash their media player for who-knows-what reason.) There are many fewer tools to deal with this sort of problem on an embedded system like a pinball machine as compared to a computer... no one wants to deal with a bricked pinball machine.

- How far do you take this? Customer A might want different background music... customer B might not like some sound effects and want to change those... customer C would like different voice calls... customer D would like the steins customized to match the beers they serve in their bar... etc etc etc.

- With all these complexities, it's very likely that some customers would have questions or problems and then need to contact API Service for assistance. That would be time (and therefore money) the Service team would wind up spending helping customers with self-inflicted issues, rather than helping customers who have more serious game malfunctions. That's in addition to the time (and therefore money) the Software team would have to spend on this, rather than, say, polishing other features in the game... or creating an awesome Game #3.

There's a reason that major companies spend BILLIONS of dollars each year doing software... it's never as simple as it seems.

First of all pinballslave I want to apologize if I have offended you. After reading my comment I can definitely see that you feel "backstabbed" but that was not my intention. I wanted just to point out that in my own experience offering money for a feature in software is typically futile because the actual cost of a feature is multiples higher than what people are typically willing to pay or think it costs to realize.

The reason why, I clearly didn't describe sufficiently enough. Exactly for the reason that most people think "how much can a few developer hours cost": No, I doubt that rosh or Ferret make 1000$ / hour (if you do, let me know, I'm gonna apply for a job at API today!).
The majority of cost is incurred after coding has finished. For every hour / feature coded you have to assume multiples of that for QA testing. You add documentation to that. And now, by far the larges cost is actually incurred by the support department for it and maintenance, as you have to keep maintaining this feature along with everything else as newer versions for the software go out. Paying the developer for the initial development is honestly the smallest part of that and that by a fair margin. People don't realize that, and how could they - they are not in that business - so, from the outside it certainly doesn't look that way.

EDIT ---
I didn't even mention planning of the feature yet, that takes also time. Typically done by Business Analysts or somebody wearing that hat in a smaller company is the planning of what and how the feature should work from a functional standpoint. After that a developer will take those specs and turn them into technical tasks - agile development anyone? -, while potentially going forth and back with the BA. There will be many hours spent before actually one line of code is written.
EDIT END ---

Now if you add in limited resources - nobody has an unlimited supply of developers, QA, and support people - you have to weigh every features benefits against other things you could be doing instead.

My intention with that post earlier was to point out that offering money is likely to be not fruitful in light of how software development works, and before we create the proverbial s***storm of "They got even offered money and are not willing to do it".

The longer I thought about my request the more I realized that it probably is not going to be done for reasons mentioned. And I apologize to API, because this discussion was certainly not my intention. Especially after Ferret gave a little bit deeper analysis above it becomes clear that the feature is non-trivial to implement and the associated dangers and cost seem to outweigh benefits for now. Maybe they will add something like this in one of their next games, but backporting this feature for Oktoberfest seems not really feasible.

I regret asking for it now, because I should have made that connection before I wrote this, especially being in that profession myself.

Any manufacturer that updates a game. We see an increase in posts on Pinside with people having issues doing the update. Can't do it, won't go in. Killed the game. Etc. Etc.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. We don't see the support tickets and emails and phone calls the tech guys get. Those days I want to hide under a desk. And I ain't even got a desk.

LTG : )

LTG, maybe you can explain... Why is it so difficult to do updates? It seems that different games are particular about what size or type of USB is used, whether or not it was freshly reformatted, etc. I know nothing about programming, but it seems that this is a particularly persnickety process. Is it not possible to program it in such a way that it is more forgiving?

Because there are so many variables. The person - did they get a clean download ? Did they prepare the USB stick right ? Load the download onto the USB stick right ? Did they use a recommended USB stick ? Did they put it into the game right ? Did they make a mistake along the way ? Did the game decide it didn't like the USB stick used ? And sometimes crap happens, we don't know why.

I'm not a programmer. I do know JJP is working on an update so after that you can use Wifi to do updates. Eliminating many of the problems they have encountered. No idea exactly when this will be available. I do believe a lot of people, besides me. Will be happy when it's in use. And some of the manufacturers have easier ways to do updates.

LTG : )

Great point, Custom Message is a far simpler thing and there have been more than a few 'trouble tickets' on it.

Also keep in mind potential licensing issues. I'm not talking about you putting licensed music on your machine in home, but what if is on location and more important is what about the flip side? if we do a licensed game, allowing someone to change music can create new issues. Let's say we do Harry Potter and JK Rowling comes across a Harry Potter machine in a bar in London and the music is something she did not approve . . . .

So, while I'm not going to say never, anytime this comes up we find there are far more reasons why it may not be a good idea vs it being a good idea.

You heard it here first, folks: American Pinball's next game will be Harry Potter!

I want one! Where do I sign up for one?

Right after me

You can send a NON-refundable, FULL purchase price payment, of $25K to my personal account in the Cayman Islands to reserve your place in line

Tempting - I'll send you a check. Don't cash until after delivery though.

Funny. I don't recall in any of the movies or books. Of Harry wearing a houndstooth detective hat ?

I could be wrong though.

LTG : )

Shit…right after a Rick and Morty Spooky announcement? Sign me up for American Harry Potter! Do owners of Oktoberfest get priority? .

A Harry Potter Hogsmeade Edition would go nicely alongside an Oktoberfest!

You have an OS that needs to see the hardware
You have an OS that needs to successfully mount the filesystem
You have an application that is coded to look for files in a certain place

Where things commonly go wrong...
- Hardware compatibility of the USB stick... not such a big deal anymore, but not unheard of.
- Hardware compatibility of the USB stick with the linux drivers in use - happens because this isn't as uniform as it is on major consumer platforms like windows, etc
- Compatibility of the USB sticks formatting with the linux setup - probably most common.. since there are many variations people can use. From the partition table formats, to filesystem types, etc. This is the most common issue simply because there are the most variations
- Files not in the right place as the app expects them - probably second most common
- Files being bad - corruption due to bad download, bad copy, bad unmounting of volume, etc

Now.. add in the scenarios where you need to do a BOOTABLE USB stick.. and you get another set of fun. Because again, most of the configuration needed on the stick is not stuff commonly done by end users and isn't made front-and-center in their OS of choice. They have to use utilities, command line, etc.

The biggest issue is it's a fixed linux installation - which is not what most end-users are accustomed to and the utilities most end-users use are built to be so 'automagic' that they rarely expose the right controls.

I've found once I setup a USB stick with simple 4gig partition and fat32... I've not had any problems at all.. even with the $3 walmart USB stick I use.

Why did that side art go away ? I like it. Seems it has more flavor and visual interest - at least to me.

I recall a lot of criticism directed at AP on this because the name of the game was obscured.

What happened to the monkey back glasses?

Was there more than one ? Original probably at American Pinball.

If more. Since Joe Balcer and Matt Reister were on it, maybe they each got one ?

LTG : )

All I know is that the monkey had a history of bad behavior. He got kicked out of the bumper car area for knocking the ball of the habitrail. He got kicked out of WOZ (and turned in his wings) because he was always flying away with the ball. I hope he shows up in game #3 so I can see what he does next!

The monkey is on the production version of the backglass on Oktoberfest.

LTG : )

Yeah but he is so tiny I almost need a magnifying glass to see it.

He's the American Pinball Houdini monkey. So he doesn't have "it" to see to begin with.

LTG : )

I always thought he had "it" but not "them"?

You are right. My mistake. Sorry.

LTG : )

Re coding: This is exactly why I think the whole 'locking down the code' thing is anti productive to the companies. There are people out there who are probably better coders who would do aftermarket tweaks and finish unfinished code for free and better (no offense). While yes, there are some possible downsides to it, as there is with everything - in the end if the code can be updated/changed in a way it could increase the longevity of said game and it would be up to whoever owns the game to decide what version they want. I've never understood the whole proprietary code and hiding of code on these things. Especially as fast as they try to put them out unfinished and the consumer having to hope it is finished and that updates will actually come out. This is almost 2020 and the internet. Anything is possible. Embrace the fact there are hobbyists out there who can enhance what has already been created.